sketch wrote:I tried all the examples from [url=https://www.waze.com/livemap/?zoom=15&lat=45.78328&lon=-108.50068&from_lat=44.08054&from_lon=-103.23101&to_lat=45.78329&to_lon=-108.50069]this post plus the route from Rapid City, SD to Billings, MT with the routing test, but all the results were the same in every case.

Yeah, that's disappointing. Did you include this example in the routing test feedback thread?

Lastly, neither KISS nor FC (hybrid or pure) work for the best route from the Florida Gulf Coast to Montgomery, AL. There’s a 20-mile stretch of 4-lane, 65mph (75+ on good day!) Alabama state highway in the middle of nowhere rated as “rural minor arterial,” mH. For routing to work (yes, I have experimented), it has to be MH, which means the FC would have to be “rural principal arterial” for me to legitimately change it to MH. (Google Maps gets this routing right.) I changed it back to mH even though the reality is MH.

That is why at least in NC I proposed a wiki page to post these anomalies (either upgrade/downgrade) changes that would differ from the hybrid FC type system. My thinking is that there would be a list for editors in NC to see why this road differs from the standard and then to bring it up in the forum for discussion if needed. I also believe, fingers crossed, that using this hybrid method would bring far fewer exceptions to the rule then the KISS, or what is currently posted in the wiki.

I think one fix Waze could implement (whether it is a simple fix or not I am not sure) is to include Minor Highways for longer routes. Again I am not sure what distance this could be to A) make minor highways more useful and B) not bring the routing server(s) to its knees. This also would probably bring up a separate topic of what Waze is. Is it a commuting nav app or a general nav app? I hesitate to bring this up by sidetracking the issue at hand but I think if you look at the "pruning" mechanism as I know it. I would lean more towards it being a commuting app that we are shoehorning a general nav app into.

Also as I stated above in an older post. I have seen it work the minor highways on a reroute the way I would expect it to. But that is real time recalculating and as sketch said before there could be some sort of mechanism in place for rerouting.

Like Alan asked is the beta routers seeing any thing different. Knowing this answer might even make this whole discussion moot.

After dropping out of this discussion several pages ago, I researched FC in Florida and Alabama, and modified one county to see what would happen to the existing routing aligned under KISS. To revisit KISS again:

US – major state – minor county (or equivalent) – primary

Aligning with FC broke the ideal routing from the Florida Gulf Coast to Montgomery, AL. By “ideal routing” I mean:

a. What I know to be true since this is where I live b. What Google Maps says is the best routing – which happens to align exactly with a.

More about this in a minute.

KISS, though easier to understand and it brings consistency to editing, isn’t perfect, either. (Yes, I, a KISS supporter, said that.) The rural south has county roads that are dirt. Red clay, washboard, sticks to everything, dirt. Are they primary segments as aligned under KISS? (Don’t answer that!) An “unpaved” check-box might be helpful in these situations, but there’s little sense in talking about options we don’t have. Never-the-less, I have seen darn few long-distance routing error reports under the KISS methodology.

But wanting to be a team player, I continued with FC study since it seems the direction we are headed. I found places where roads should be upgraded from their FC classification – as described in sketch’s FC-hybrid proposal.

There are segments that should not be upgraded from pure FC. One such road in my region is US-90 across north Florida parallel to I-10. Florida rates it a minor arterial (mH)…and it really is given I-10’s close proximity.

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So, what I have gotten out of the discussion is this:

- No one outside of Waze knows enough to state confidently when Waze uses speed data (average & current) or segment type, or a hybrid. We don’t know the proprietary algorithms/data so struggle to inform our thought processes based on personal experience; experience which lacks consistency from one editor to the next seemingly based on their location. In short, we are trying to determine how to apply segment types around inconsistencies or expectations of Waze’s routing. We don't know what we don't know.

- We seem to have confidence in speed data informing Waze’s routing results in metro and on more heavily traveled routes

- We seem to have limited confidence in speed data – or even its availability – to inform Waze's routing results elsewhere (e.g., off-the-interstate rural routes). In those areas:

- The effects of FC-hybrid on routing in metro and rural areas are not reliably comparable and should not influence any decision on what methodology to use

- Under FC-hybrid, road segments can be upgraded from pure FC, but not downgraded

- Under FC-pure, a lot of current road segments would be downgraded

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What I think to be true:

- What to with dirt roads, even if they are county roads, is clearer in FC-hybrid than KISS

- Both KISS and FC-hybrid can be -– and one or the other should be -– applied nationally and reduce disputes over segment types; yes, I know not every place has county roads, but they do have functional (ha!) equivalents

- Use caution with any rule set that necessitates numerous exceptions; when exceptions outnumber the rules, then the rules were faulty to begin with

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Lastly, neither KISS nor FC (hybrid or pure) work for the best route from the Florida Gulf Coast to Montgomery, AL. There’s a 20-mile stretch of 4-lane, 65mph (75+ on good day!) Alabama state highway in the middle of nowhere rated as “rural minor arterial,” mH. For routing to work (yes, I have experimented), it has to be MH, which means the FC would have to be “rural principal arterial” for me to legitimately change it to MH. (Google Maps gets this routing right.) I changed it back to mH even though the reality is MH.

So whether KISS or FC-hybrid, I expect national consistency from any GPS product. Waze used to be focused on the local commuter, but now they have matured so a national standard is needed. Given a choice between exceptions or standardization, I choose standardization and accepting that road segments may not always be represented by their ideal classification or produce Google Map quality routing.

By the way, please keep the current (larger) font size. You young’uns will understand someday.

I tried all the examples from [url=https://www.waze.com/livemap/?zoom=15&lat=45.78328&lon=-108.50068&from_lat=44.08054&from_lon=-103.23101&to_lat=45.78329&to_lon=-108.50069]this post plus the route from Rapid City, SD to Billings, MT with the routing test, but all the results were the same in every case.

So much fun discussion! Did I miss any routing test users chiming in that the new routing code does a much better job of using mH and primary street, using speed data rather than pruning based only on road type?

sketch wrote:A lot of the text in the wiki is old and has survived revisions without comment. It's really pruning we're trying to avoid, in case a roundabout is in the middle of a route. Same as at-grade connectors.

Not to mention that this silly argument is about typing of at-grade connectors and roundabouts is minutia that is irrelevant because the number of segments and distance involved isn't going to exclude it via pruning.

It would be nice if some testing was done on the minimum distance before pruning occurs. Because I really do feel like it does actually occur on shorter distance trips; maybe not every time, but fairly often. I just keep going back to your statement of that route in New Orleans that was never suggested until you made it a major highway. It was pruned. And it was a short distance trip.

A lot of the text in the wiki is old and has survived revisions without comment. It's really pruning we're trying to avoid, in case a roundabout is in the middle of a route. Same as at-grade connectors.

Here's the key sentences on the roundabout page, you seem to have missed it (that's understandable, it's only the 2nd and 3rd sentences of the section):

To minimize inefficient routing, it is important to be careful with the road type assigned to the Roundabout itself. Any routing penalty going from connected roads to the roundabout must be kept to a minimum, but it should not be too "attractive" where routing through it is encouraged when unnecessary.

If these sentences are incorrect, they should be edited. They basically imply what I have been saying: Higher class roads are 'attractive' to the routing and it will go out of its way to use them, whereas changing from a higher type to a lower type receives a 'penalty' and is avoided except in cases where traffic on the higher type overcomes that penalty.